Click here to learn how you can join us for a LIVE Q&A with Tina Cervasio (DATE: Wednesday, June 20th – TIME: 12pm EST (9am PST)

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I had the pleasure of interviewing Tina Cervasio the other day. Tina is one of the most recognizable and versatile sports journalists in the largest media market in the United States today.

The New Jersey native is part of the two-time Emmy Award winning MSG Network Knicks Broadcast, and currently serves as the sideline and feature reporter for the New York Knicks of the NBA, a contributor to the New York Liberty of the WNBA, and pre-game host and reporter for the New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer, as well as handling reporting and anchor duties on FOX 5 for their Emmy-winning “Good Day New York” and “Sports Extra” television shows.

She is also one of the most active journalists in social media, and this past spring and summer assisted Bloomberg Sports in expanding their footprint in fantasy baseball and football through her extensive and ever-growing network of influential followers.

Tina Cervasio Discusses Her Path As A Sports Reporter

During the interview, Tina and I discussed:

Her unorthodox path to the top TV market in the country and MSG Networks

Her no-fail advice for aspiring sports broadcasters

How she uses social media to prepare for games and leverage her brand

The importance of passion and why she loves working Christmas day

Tina Cervasio Video Transcript

Kelly: We are Skyping today with Tina Cervasio, New York Knicks Reporter, Red Bulls Host, and one of New York City’s most versatile sportscasters. Tina welcome, and thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

Tina: That was a nice intro, Kelly, thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate this.

Kelly: No problem, tell me a little bit about your story and the non-traditional path you took to eventually land your dream job at MSG Network.

Tina: Well, I went to college really to be a sports broadcaster, so it’s always the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do, and of course in college you take your journalism courses and cover your sports teams and you’re on the radio and do TV and you name it. When speakers would come in, they’d always tell you to go to the small markets, and that’s how you work your way up to the larger markets. So, I started making my resume tape both from where I worked at our TV station at the University of Maryland, and I got some freelance work. It was HomeTeamSports at the time out of Washington D.C., and I made my demo tape and sent it out all over the country, all of the small markets from Pocatello, Idaho to Yakima, Washington, and all the little towns you’ve never even heard of in Texas, but they had TV stations, and I just could not land a job. They kept telling me I was too New York, and I understood that, I speak fast, I did used to have a very thick accent—I did work on that. I like to talk with my hands and I’m excitable, so that wouldn’t really work in the Deep South, and I get that now. Back then, I was offended, but I just kept seeking out any kind of work in television and sports and started behind the scenes, logging games, but being paid for it, so it was a little different from my internships. I worked my way up to being an editor, and then a highlight producer, and I was working at all these small cable stations, and then some big ones in the New York/New Jersey/Tri-state area. From there, I was able to build my resume tape, both from actually doing legitimate on-air work, where they would give me an opportunity here and there or just doing my stand-ups or doing fake three minute sports segments, and it gave me experience. It built up my resume tape, but I still wasn’t getting those affiliate jobs. What worked out was those places where I was working started to hire me to work on-air. Staten Island Cable- I started doing sideline reporting for all of the local colleges on Staten Island, and while it’s one of the five New York City burrows, New York City being the largest TV market, Staten Island itself has a larger population than some of the small markets I was trying to get jobs at, so that gave me a lot of credibility. I did everything from sports to news to traffic to weather- did radio, and just gave myself as much as experience as possible, whether it was sports or not, and I think it really helped me as a broadcaster. Then, never leaving the realm of sports, whether it was writing or I would do sideline reporting for Arena Football, I would get my hands on anything and never say no, and I was able to build enough of a demo, enough experience to start getting legitimate work. At first, it was Animal Planet, and it was dog shows, but it was a national cable network, and then from there, I started doing work for the NFL, when they had NFL Sunday Ticket, before the NFL Network, so it was a very slow process and very unorthodox as we’re taught as broadcasters, whether it’s news, sports, or weather, or for anyone that wants to get on TV or radio. It’s sort of unorthodox- it did take a long time, but I was able to slowly climb that ladder to get to where I always wanted to be, which was a New York City sports broadcaster.

Kelly: Did you have moments along the way where you questioned is this the right path I’m taking or maybe you weren’t progressing quite as fast as you would have liked?

Tina: Absolutely. I left the industry a couple times. One time I took a sales job at Hilton Hotels, because I wanted to work in Manhattan so bad and work in the city. My friends were making all this money. I was lucky if I was getting paid for half my jobs and fifty bucks here to be a runner at a Yankees game. Then, you get a couple hundred bucks for a radio shift, and I would do pretty good stories for a Time Warner cable station in New Jersey, but they would pay you fifty dollars to do a story. So, I was doing good work, but I wasn’t getting paid for it, and it was frustrating, and I took the sales job, and I’ll never forget Kelly. I was in the hallway of the Hilton on 53rd and Third. And the Mets started walking in, and they were having a team function, and then behind the Mets came all of the New York- all of the television media, the writers, the crews with their cameras, and reporters running around with their microphones. That night, I didn’t quit my Hilton job right away, but I just got on the computer, re-did my resume, started sending out e-mails and making phone calls, so I really only left the industry about six months, but I did. Sometimes I still get discouraged, day to day, things come up, but that’s my advice to young broadcasters- female or male, doesn’t matter, if you’re in college or in high school or in college or someone in their twenties trying to break through- don’t give up. You may have to take an alternate route- look somewhere else to make money, keep you on your feet at times, but why give up with it? You never know when something will click and someone will gravitate to you and hire you.

Kelly: That’s great advice. You know you mentioned you wanted to be a sports broadcaster from the beginning and went to college for it. When did the whole love affair with sports begin for you?

Tina: My Dad was always a big sports fan. He played college football at Cornell, so it wasn’t like he was winning national championships at Penn State or Notre Dame or huge big-time schools, because education was his focus. He was a great running back for Cornell, so I grew up in a house where sports and education together were important. My Mom was an educator, teacher, and administrator, and it was so important. She preached sports as an activity, so sports had a very important base in my home growing up. My late Grandfather (my Dad’s father) was a huge New York Giants football fan. My Grandmother and Grandfather (my Mother’s parents) were huge Yankee’s fans, and there were always sports on the weekend. My Dad and I would sit and watch college football for hours on Saturdays. So, there was that love of sport, but it wasn’t so much idolatry. I wasn’t idolizing Reggie Jackson or players like Michael Jordan, but looking at sport as the competition and the physical ability of these players. There’s a winner and a loser and so many stories that come along with all these athletes, and coaches and teams and franchises and organizations. So, it was a unique perspective for a young person, where I didn’t always want a player’s autograph. We’d go to dinners and Phil Simms would be at a dinner, and everyone’s running for his autograph. I just wanted to talk to him and chat, and that’s where sort of the sports reporter was coming out in me as a young person. So, it really got me, I was eleven years old and my Dad took us to the Rose Bowl. 1986- it was New Year’s Day, and UCLA played Iowa, and just being in that atmosphere, and my parents saw me light up and talk to people from both Iowa and UCLA when we were on tours the whole week and the whole L.A./Pasadena area and asking them about why will UCLA win, and why will Iowa win, and this and that. My Dad said you should really, as you’re getting ready to go into high school, look for a career in sports, and I started watching TV and hearing on the radio in New York, Suzyn Waldman was doing WFAN and started covering the Yankees and seeing Lesley Visser and Hannah Storm and all of the women appeared on television. We were obsessed with SportsCenter in college and Linda Cohn, and that where it really all kind of built up.

Kelly: It’s funny that you mention the Rose Bowl, because for me it was kind of the same experience. I went when I was 13, freshman in high school, and Arizona State was playing Ohio State, and we had really great seats, and I had never been to a bowl game before. It was kind of the same effect over me—I have to do this as a career.

Tina: Absolutely, you just want to be in that environment every day. My Dad would say find something you love to do and get someone to pay you for it. Well, I loved going to games, so now I get to go to games and get paid for it.

Kelly: You’ve had the good fortune, you’ve worked with some greats along the way, and I remember reading a specific interview and you talked about some advice Spencer Tillman had given you that really helped, and talk about some of the people who have influenced you most along the way.

Tina: Spencer is definitely one of them. I worked with him at NFL Sunday Ticket. We’d do the Sunday show wrapping around all the games, like I said before NFL Network. He talked about this crucible experience. He said you go through changes, you go through challenges, doubts, at times, and you want to go through that, and even though it might be painful at times, let that change you. It’s a scientific theory- he’s such a brilliant man, he wrote a book about this, and he got it from a Harvard Review- everything from physics, he could tell the story much better. He talks about how in a crucible you put an element and you burn it from underneath, and it changes the element. It becomes something different when you’re done burning it, so it’s okay to go through those uncomfortable times, its okay to be burned, as long as when you change into something, you become something better and something stronger. Brian Baldinger is another person- he’s more of a rah-rah coach, and he always encouraged me. I met him when I was a runner for NFL on Fox. They paid me fifty bucks—sometimes I was doing major stuff like keeping stats in the television production truck and other times I was helping Howie Long’s kids who now are playing college football. I just saw his son when I covered the Rams last season, and I was getting them ice cream. So, it was kind of a combination of everything, but I learned from Brian. He always talked about personality—being nice to people, building your network and networking. I’m speaking about when I was a runner for Fox, and I met people like Brian Baldinger and Howie Long, and years later, Fox hired me to be an NFL sideline reporter, and that was my first experience this past year, so it was that networking that Brian Baldinger taught me about. But day-to-day I work with Al Trautwig, Mike Breen, Clyde Frazier now at MSG. Clyde teaches me so much about the game and being an NBA player. Mike Breen, just the consummate professional, the perfect play-by-play approach, everything from preparation to asking the right questions to build information for the game but also bring a little entertainment to the game as well. And Al Trautwig has coached me in doing full half-hour TV shows, with a rundown in your hand, no teleprompter, really nothing to work from but your rundown and stat sheet, and I continue to learn from those men, every day I go to work.

Kelly: That’s great. It sounds like you have some great mentors. What would you consider the most valuable experience along your career path so far?

Tina: That’s a good question, because I think you go through experiences every year that add value and help you go through the next year. I think of what I went through covering the Boston Red Sox and covering 162 games a year, six weeks of spring training, four weeks—19 games of the postseason, and it makes the basketball season, and I hope this doesn’t bite me in the butt some day, but it seems easy to cover. Easy in the sense that it’s half the amount of games, and I have those days in between to go to practice and prepare and look for different stories, during a regular NBA season. This year’s NBA season condensed- schedule was a little different with the lockout, but I’m looking forward to next season already. In a regular season, where I can do in-depth features or in-depth interviews, which I’ve done in the past with the Knicks, but I didn’t get a chance to this year. So, that was an invaluable experience, to really make me appreciate and get more out of covering the NBA or this NBA schedule that the Knicks go through. Then, I just look at being a traffic reporter at 5 o’clock in the morning and learning how to ad-lib from the breaking news flashes that were coming up on my computer screen and granted it was radio, but taking those words, putting them into sentences, making it interesting, pulling out the most important information, and that has nothing to do with sports, but as a sports broadcaster, you’re able to do that when someone hands you a halftime box score. So, I can look at the box score and do a three-minute recap over highlights, and not just do play-by-play to tell the story about the reason the Knicks are up at the half, it’s because of the ball movement. It’s breaking down the defense—the Knicks have 12 team assists and I’m able to do that by just pulling out the information, so being a traffic reporter, I really attribute that to it. I remember being able to pull out important words and then you deliver it to the fan or your demographic or whoever’s listening to your audience at the time, so I think it’s all of those experiences add up and they kind of attribute to the different situations that you encounter as a broadcaster down the road.

Kelly: That makes sense, and knowing how to ad-lib is invaluable in our careers. You’re one of the most active journalists on social media and when did you realize the value of it, and how has it played a role in your rise in the sports industry?

Tina: Well, Twitter is just crazy and I really see the NBA as one of the stronger entities that gravitated towards Twitter. Of course, Shaq was one of the first Tweeters, and it took me a while. I remember it was the 2009-10 season where it really started becoming popular. A couple of my friends in Boston who I worked with, I met them through covering the Red Sox, and they were tweeting the Celtics. I started a Twitter account and didn’t tweet for a while, but it does do a combination of things. For me, I use it as a news feed, and I follow the information I need for games. I have it all organized—my Knicks writers, my NBA writers or tweeters, soccer, and then just fun and entertainment people, and then players are in a whole different category. I use it as a valuable resource to help me with my broadcast but I used to…social media was a little different six years ago. I used to hate those message boards because you’d come upon them, and here you are trying to find information about the Orioles and Red Sox series, and you find nasty stuff written about you. I just hated the opportunity that people were able to just sit at their computer, use a fake name, and just say all this stuff. It used to scare me and upset me, but I said you know what; it becomes what you make of it. And I used Twitter as a combination of delivering news, being part of somebody else’s news feeds, but connecting with fans. I think a great example— I just went through my Twitter feeds of my last five weeks last night, and I met a little kid whose Dad tweeted about him in the morning, because they were going to Red Bulls game at night. And he said, hey I wonder if that halftime host is going to be there. And he tweeted to me (the father) about his son, oh you have a little following, my son’s excited to see the halftime chick besides seeing the Red Bulls players. I said, great, come over and meet me, and sure enough, the guy brought his son, and we took a picture together, so that’s what’s great about Twitter. It really connects you with people you may not have been able to connect with before. I tweeted out come visit us on a certain location between the pre-game show, I’ve given out tickets for the Knicks home season games, and it’s a riot, you meet people, you hear stories, it just opens up a whole new world. I’ve created friends, contacts in the industry, I could just go on and on, so it’s what you make of it.

Kelly: A while back you had teamed up with Bloomberg to expand their footprint in fantasy sports and talk about that partnership and the idea behind it.

Tina: Yes, they have so many great applications, Bloomberg with fantasy sports front office for baseball and decision maker for NFL, and I had done fantasy a couple times. Bloomberg adopted one of the fantasy leagues I was in, and we’re all females, most of us are in the sports or entertainment business. Some of us are movie casting directors or producers, so it’s a little group of women that we kind of hang out and go out to dinner and did a fantasy league the previous year. Bloomberg found about it, brought us on, and sort of used us a little bit as a model to help people struggling and how they could have fun with it and use it as social media too. We were using it in conversations and trash talking on Twitter, and it was just another way of using sports, a way of getting information out there. And it’s a whole new sport—there’s the NFL, MLB, MLS, NBA, fantasies just like Nascar or anything MMA. It’s a whole other sport and allows fans to feel a part of it and close to the athletes, so you can feel like a manager or coach or we always have the longing to be the quarterback, now you have to be responsible for your team, so being them and using social media with Bloomberg, it’s just a fun way to connect people and bring the information for their product out which was the front office of decision maker for baseball or football and just another fun thing to get involved with.

Kelly: Your job, it changes by the sports season, but for you, right now, give us an idea of what a typical day is and what you enjoy most about your job?

Tina: Typical day, with the Knicks game, you get up, read stories, get all the stuff in line, try to work out, that happens maybe three times out of seven days a week if I’m lucky. I love basketball in the sense you go to shootarounds. I love shootaround days, you can relax with the players, you get more info out of them, you can interview them, and Coach is in the process of making decisions, so that can create more stories when you get his true starting lineup at 6 pm and it’s, well why is this person starting because this morning you said well maybe he was, and so it just creates all story lines and I love the process of a basketball game day, and then I usually work from home or go back to my hotel on the road and just do my work, put my stories together, get out on social media and see what the fans want to hear, want to know about as well, get over to the game at 4 or 5:00 we have our pre-game meeting, depending on the start of the game time. If it’s a 7:30 game, 5:00 pre-game meeting, 6:00 you get your coaches, press conferences from one to the other, home and away team, and then you get in that locker room, try to get those last minute stories, try to get players on camera before a game, that’s always difficult. That’s why it’s great going to shootaround, and then it’s game-time, and Knicks post-game and with the players we have now with Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire, it’s an hour of post-game, waiting for players to get ready and get out and do their interviews. It’s a long day but it’s a fun and it goes fast. Same thing with Red Bulls, usually Red Bulls is a two-day situation, because we’ll go to training the day before a game. So, I’ll be at practice 10:30 in the morning, watch practice, talk to the players, talk to the PR director, get some story lines, what to anticipate. I love it. It’s a totally different atmosphere, definitely more of a European feel obviously, and talk with the players on camera after practice. Then I host pre-game for Red Bulls, go home with that information, and I get my rundown from my producer and all the different highlights and just start working on that for a couple hours. It’s sort of a two-day process with that too, but I just enjoy what I do. I don’t know, I love sports, I love working, and I love the people I work with. We have fun, we were laughing all night last night with Red Bulls. It’s work, and especially in New York, the pressure’s on, and you want to do the best job possible, and I still go to my announcers constantly for advice, but we still have a lot of fun with our crew. That’s kind of why I like it, and there’s still always that challenge. I don’t know Kelly about you, but I’m still a nervous wreck every time I go on. You make the slightest misspeak, I’ve misspoke maybe 25 times with you already today, but if this was on-air and in broadcast, you think I misspoke and everybody’s going to think I made this mistake but you try to be natural and stuff constantly goes through my head, but I like that challenge every day and try and be better and try and get good answers out of players and little stories you can build on. It’s a constant challenge, even when you’re comfortable in your job where you work, every minute that light goes on, it’s a challenge. The biggest person you owe up to are the fans, the people watching, because you’re trying to bring them the most information in an entertaining fashion too, something they maybe hadn’t thought of going into the game or a different angle, so to me that’s where the pressure is constantly coming from. That’s also why you keep going back.

Kelly: You mentioned the New York media, and how have you really been able to distinguish yourself, because you’re in the top market in the United States, and you know firsthand how relentless that media is and how competitive it is, just even getting a sound bite from a guy, but how have you made yourself stand out in that market?

Tina: I don’t even consider myself someone that stands out, but thank you. There are so many broadcasters too. I’m doing a charity thing in a couple of weeks where New York broadcasters are racing against each other in a Derby. I’m actually going to be driving a trotter, and I was looking at the list of broadcasters and it’s like a tenth of the amount of New York broadcasters, so there’s so many of us, writers, bloggers, TV, radio, so many…two sports radio stations, three sports regional channels, then you have all of our affiliates who have the broadcasters, and I also work for our Fox affiliate. I do more work now in the Knicks offseason, like this whole weekend I’m anchoring there doing sports. If there’s a game seven in the Eastern Conference finals, I’ll be there. If there’s not a game seven, I’ll be at Mets, so I think you just have to definitely have an identity. Obviously, my identity is definitely with the Knicks as the team reporter, one of the Knicks announcers and also one of the Red Bulls announcers, but even in my own locker room, as I call it, I have to be aggressive, because if I don’t get in there, everyone is going to be jumping on, trying to get their particular quotes for their story they are writing or their feature, or their sidebar they’re doing for their TV station, whether it’s an affiliate or one of the other regionals that have a sports show, but I’m live, so I even have to be aggressive, elbow people out of the way to try and get three or four game questions in, wrap up the story, get the top soundbites in, because I’m live. They can sort of come back and edit. I’m always nudging players, LIVE, if you don’t want to look bad, don’t drop anything we’re going to need to beep in seven seconds. So, it’s just that challenge. You just have to be aggressive and work hard. I think that’s the biggest thing, and it comes through. Those that work hard rise to the top, those that tell a good story once in a while, those good stories stick, whether it’s a column somebody writes or a sideline report. Sometimes one interview will stand out or one little 10 second report I’ll give on the sideline about a player I’ve picked up, so it keeps you on your toes. The good thing I enjoy about it, and I saw it in Boston too, and I think it’s a misconception that’s out there, it’s perceived differently from other markets. We all know each other, and if you’re someone like me that’s friendly, I have fun with the other members of the New York media, chit-chatting when we’re standing around waiting for Carmelo Anthony. Like I said, talking to writers before the Red Bulls are available after their training session. I just love being around those people, you gain information from them. We share horror stories and there’s competition, but you talk to each other and you like each other, because you respect what each other does. So, it’s not like we’re all standing there not talking to each other in locker rooms, you get to know people, and I’ve made wonderful friends in the New York sports media and Boston media. Two of my best friends I met in Boston. One of my best friends hired me years ago at MSG; she’s a casting director and sports producer. Some of my best friends are women that I’ve met that are in the sports media. I’ve gotten friendly with Bonnie Bernstein who was someone I looked up to in college. Just getting together with women in the industry is always important, so we’re trying to get jobs and stories, and you can create a great community, and I think I’ve taken advantage of that. I think that’s important, instead of creating tension, why not create friendships.

Kelly: I think you’re right. It’s so important for women in the industry to support each other. I noticed you’re a member of American Women in the Sports Media as well, and I joined the organization last year and went to a conference in North Carolina, and I was just blown away. There’s so many women in one room that are so passionate about sports, and I just made a ton of friends and great number of contacts, and it was neat to see so many women that share your same passion and common interest.

Tina: You can learn so much. I also do WISE—Women in Sports and Events, and we have a big luncheon coming up in June and I always leave so rejuvenated and inspired. You go to little panel, about the Business of Golf, yet you meet someone and it might not even pertain to your own career at the time, and you just meet different women and even men that get involved in those different panels. It’s a great source of knowledge and support.

Kelly: What would you consider the most important skills for your job?

Tina: I think the most important thing is you are a reporter first. You really need to get the story, what happened, why, where on the field, where on the court, where in the locker room did the situation happen? We had that in the postseason with Amare Stoudemire. That’s what’s most important—getting the story. I get discouraged or frustrated sometimes if I’m not getting technical answers, but sometimes it opens up a whole Pandora box of stories. So, it’s not always a technical aspect of the game, there could be another element that got the team to that result, win or lose. So I think reporter/journalist first. Even when I write my anchor segment when I work at Fox 5 as a journalist, get the best information first. While being an entertainer is important, it comes second, but it’s just as important. You want to be able to communicate and have good personality, and I always try to focus on just talking to one person, talking sports at the bar. I’m chatting at the bar with my buddy. You think of that when I’m doing a show or report or forget that anyone’s been watching my interview. The camera’s there and they’re eavesdropping, and it’s me chatting with a player, and it puts them at ease. It’s kind of entertainment/personality in that aspect but skill-wise it’s journalist first, and you can’t go wrong after that, because anything else is easily learned or you can acquire through practice whether it’s ad-libbing or writing for broadcast. The most important thing is the story and information

Kelly: You’ve given a lot of great advice so far in this interview. What other advice would you give to aspiring sports broadcasters or sports professionals looking to land their dream job in the sports industry?

Tina: It sounds so corny or cliché, but just don’t give up. By giving up, you might think you’ve run into a roadblock, but get on that phone—it’s about that networking. One bit of advice leads to the next, and if you’ve built a great networking base, when you run into an obstacle about getting a certain job or getting to a certain level, you can go back to that network that you built. They can help you out with that job or get you another opportunity, and another cliché, but a door closes, another one opens but it will only open if you’ve got that network built and if you’re maybe at a crossroads and don’t have that network, get involved in these organizations. I will never be without a job because of my Women Sports in Events, even if it’s not being an on-air television sports broadcaster. I can find a job somewhere through all those connections I have because I know they trust me and I trust them. Find an organization or foundation, even if it’s a full charity foundation you can get involved with, whether or not it has to do with sports. One of my stories, my husband battled cancer last year so we got involved and reached out to American Cancer Society. What are we involved with right now—Coaches versus Cancer and sports get pulled into the whole thing, and they’re a big part of our story and even who I am as a broadcaster now. Find a charity that means a lot to you. You can still build something and get your dream job—you may meet people speaking at an event. That could become your dream job, getting involved with something sports-related, but the charity aspect. So, that’s really sort of the advice. Keep it up, but build a network. Keep working hard, criticism is tough, but reach out to people to help you. Always ask questions—I’m always asking questions, because you can only benefit from it.

Kelly: That’s great. I love this quote that you gave in an interview, you said, “Expect sacrifices, such as very low pay in the beginning, working weekends, nights, and holidays but stick with it. If this is what you want to do…I still work weekends and holidays and love it.” I can absolutely relate to that being in the industry. There’s really no substitute for passion Tina, is there? You work just as hard today as when you were first starting off.

Tina: That’s another great word passion. Doesn’t matter what event I’m covering, whether it’s a high school lacrosse game or the NBA Finals. You want to put the same effort in, because it’s still a sport and you’re still doing your job. I hate when people say, oh, you’re covering soccer and I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ It might not be the NFL today, but it is the world’s most popular sport. It’s passion about what you do. Yeah, the sacrifices are there, but I’m working Memorial Day weekend. Some people would be appalled, ‘oh my gosh, we’re going to the Hamptons or down to the shore.’ I’m going to the Mets—I can‘t wait, is it Mets or Game 7? I hope its Game 7 at Madison Square Garden. Monday morning, yes I’m working in the morning on Memorial Day, but I get to recap whatever happened the next day, so I love it. I’d rather be doing that then laying on a beach any day, any day. I work every Christmas morning, because the Knicks play on Christmas. I get to Christmas eventually, it’s still Christmas, but to me it’s a great gift. Some people like their gift and toys in the morning, and I get to go and get paid to go to an NBA basketball game. That’s how I feel about it, and I think if you’re in the industry and you don’t feel that way, if you want your summers off or you want Christmas day off or in the beginning when you don’t get paid a lot, you might have to…this is what happens in the industry, and a lot of people hear the Cinderella stories but there’s only a handful of those. You have to look at the broad spectrum of all the people that work in this industry—you might be looking at three or four people that are on national TV, but that’s a very small unique situation, so the sacrifices do have to be made, but you look back and don’t care. I spent New Year’s Eve logging a hockey game on the West Coast, Happy New Year, thanks, but you don’t mind, you don’t mind at all.

Kelly: It’s funny; I started my career at a small market TV station in Oregon. My Dad was the proud father, would brag to his friends, my daughter’s a sports anchor/reporter and you want to know how much she’s making with a college degree? She’s making nine dollars an hour and nobody could believe it, because they thought, oh, she’s on TV. The reality was there were people at McDonald’s that were making more money than me.

Tina: I can’t tell you how many times I was working in the mall at Bath and Body Works, when I was on WFAN one night, and would fill in on CBS 2 the next day, but still have to work just to get a couple extra bucks in my pocket. Even now, people think you’re on TV, you make all this money, but you don’t.

Kelly: Finally, what is the best way for people to connect with you online?

Tina: Absolutely, twitter @TinaCervasio. I always try to go through my replies; I’ve met a lot of young sports broadcasters in that aspect. I have my own website, so you can get some information, TinaCervasio.com and that’s what I did, how do I write my resume? I went and got resumes because everyone didn’t have websites when I was in college, but I went to interview different sports broadcasters and said, ‘Can I have a copy of your resume?’ I modeled my resume after them. All of my links (facebook, twitter, youtube) are on TinaCervasio.com Of course, I want more, I still have so many aspirations and so many goals, but to get you from college to where I am now, just model your resume, demo, get things out there. It will help you get going, so you can use some examples I’ve been through, which is sort of unique. Everybody has their own unique story.

Kelly: Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you want to share or think is important to know?

Tina: Social media is what you make of it. You have to have a thick skin. Sometimes I fall victim to that even today. It comes with you, sometimes you forget—you just want to do your job. Sometimes you just want to do your job, and people want your autograph too. That’s just part of the territory and deal with that. It’s different in life when that starts happening. Be nice to everyone, because you don’t know who could be your boss someday. I’ve seen situations where people in the industry don’t treat somebody right, and it comes back to bite them. Be nice to everybody, because they could be a major resource. You just never know who people are or could be down the road. Keep that network going, keep in contact with people, you never know who can help you down the road.

Kelly: Thank you so much for taking the time today. I think you offered so much wonderful advice, and you’re such a great example of someone who has worked their way up and had some full-circle moments from where you started. You have great energy on the air and you’re extremely likeable, and you’re such a great example for people out there trying to get in the profession.

Tina: I appreciate that Kelly. Thank you so much for having me on. I’ll see you again soon, definitely, good luck to you too.

Would you like to be a sports reporter like Tina? Stay tuned for an exciting announcement over the next 2 weeks on how you can meet Tina and ask her your most burning questions during a live Q&A!

Kelly Burke is a sports anchor/reporter for WSIL-TV in Southern Illinois. She became fascinated with sports after a move to the desert at age ten and quickly became a die-hard Phoenix Suns fan. Halfway through her Arizona State track and cross country career, she did a sports internship and realized people actually get paid to go to football games, and she was hooked. Her TV career has taken her to Phoenix, New York, and Oregon, but currently she covers all things SIU Salukis, where she shoots, edits, and produces her own content for the ABC affiliate. Follow her on Twitter @KellyBurkeSprts

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